It's difficult to say that medical science isn't advancing. News coverage on medical breakthroughs is standard. Further, medical information - via the internet - is on the desks of the average individual. This has created the view that our medical knowledge is great. However, it's not a fully accurate view. The reality is, what medicine does not know (or understand) is equally as great as what it knows. This, lack of knowledge, is often encountered when more serious medical problems arise that tests the doctors ability and knowledge. This is also see regularly in the news. There are regular failures of drugs. Warnings of dangers in food. Reports of "studies" have found dangerous carciogenes in every item of food - while finding "hidden" benefits. Further, a lack of faith in doctors has arisen giving way to the field of "homeopathy": natural medicine. The iron is that "Homeopathy" (which is "traditional" medicine) has become the modern choice of medicine. This makes offical medical - traditional medicine. Traditional medicine is viewed to be controlled by the interests of the pharmaceutical industry, while homeopathy is not.

However, homeopathy also has its problems; most "cures" are anecdotal. This means the patient simply states that they feel better, not that they actually are better. Take, for example, a patient suffering from allergies, a fairly common ailment. One year he takes one allergy medicine produced by a pharmaceutical company. It works, but allergy symptoms persist. In the winter of that year he visits a herbologist, and is told that the cause of his allergies is "an imbalance" in his blood caused by his liver and pancreas. The herbologist prescribes a "tea" and a new diet to solve the problem. The following allergy season he claims to feel better, yet upon observation the allergies still remain. In fact, remedy after remedy, season after season, the allergies still persist, yet the person insists that the remedies are working. Although the number of days he is affected by allergies is the same or more than when he had been taking the allergy medicine from the pharmaceutical company. Why does he keep taking the herbal remedies? Faith. The herbologist continually re-enforces the belief that the remedies are working.

This raises the question as to whether, or not, faith can heal. While there seems to be growing evidence, the science explain how it works and how it can be used, has not formally begun. Although, this concept of mind over matter; a strong belief in some that can cure is not a new one. This effect, in medicine, is known as the placebo effect. It has been observed, and is watched for, in drug trials. The placebo effect is unusual (and unwanted) in medical science, because the patient is "cure" because he believes in the "cure". Drugs, developed by pharmaceutical companies, undergo rigorous testing for their effectiveness in treating an illness, in addition to unwanted side-affects. The standard test for the placebo effect, or the effectiveness of a drug, is to have two groups of patients, one group will take the new drug and the other will take a sugar pill (harmless substances presented as the drug). Drugs must show a significant result in curing the patients as compared to the placebo. Normally, drugs either are shown to be an effect treatment - or not, but (occasionally) the placebo actually produces a physically measurable result in curing the patient. The question here is, how?

The function, and purpose, of medical science is push the boundaries of what is known - to be on the very edge of knowledge. However, in the current environment, true innovation is disapproved of - because it's too risky. This is where we are - where no other research institute will dare to go; Where virtually no funding will go; to the very edge of medical science.